Forgotten Country?
During the Second World War, the battles raged in several different “theaters” around the world. Despite the fact that the United States entered the conflict after being caught “off-guard” by a surprise Japanese attack in the Pacific, for various reasons the war in the European Theater was given priority. That’s not to say that the troops in the Pacific Theater were forgotten or overlooked, and the might of American industry and war effort channeled men and machinery in two directions at once. British troops were also engaged in multiple “theaters” around the world, and one army, fighting the Japanese in Jungles of Burma, stylized itself as “The Forgotten Army”.
My mind turned to those soldiers when I read the opening paragraph of an article: “In early summer, the world was shocked by pogroms in Kyrgyzstan. Then came the usual: The country has been forgotten.”
I’m not sure that I would with either description – that the fourteenth army was forgotten, nor that Kyrgystan has been. Both were relegated as other things became priorities, but not forgotten. President Obama and various other world leaders took the trouble to meet with Roza Otunbaeva when she was in New York. The aid is still coming in from the various donor agencies- USAID have opened an office in Osh specially to cater for the relief efforts, for example; there are diplomatic visits; I have seen several stories in the world’s press – albeit small items or relegated to the inside pages rather than the front page, but that’s understandable – and, in a way I am glad about that as the press need dramatic stories for these spaces; various bodies have applied to send the observers to monitor the elections – and I am hoping to meet several of them next week … and so on.
The article came in one of the email newsletters that I regularly receive: the Weekly Update from the International Crisis Group, (ICG). The ICG is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict, established in 1995 and now is generally recognised as the world’s leading independent, non-partisan, source of analysis and advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, European Union and World Bank, on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict. Over the years I have read their reports on Central Asia, and Kyrgyzstan in particular, with interest and I have found them to be comprehensive, authoritative and thought provoking.
Most of the time the articles featured in the newsletter are about far flung places and, to be honest, I simply skim over the headlines to see if there is anything of interest. This week there was a mention of a commentary about the situation in Kyrgyzstan by Lousie Arbour, the President of the organization who was formerly the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. Actually, she’s written a number of such commentaries over the last few weeks and they have been featured on the ICG website, (www.crisisgroup.org), in different languages – this week’s was in German, and the last three in Spanish, French and Portuguese. Fortunately, Google Chrome performs an automatic translation into English for me.
This week’s comment was headlined “Kirgistan: Die richtige Katastrophe kommt erst noch” which Chrome translated as, “Kyrgyzstan: The proper disaster is yet to come”. I don’t know German, so I don’t really know how accurate the translation is, but I found it quite depressing. It seemed to be so definite, so final: “The proper disaster IS yet to come”. Now, I know that it is the remit of the ICG to ring “early warning bells” and that may have been what she was trying to achieve, and I didn’t think that the text of the article substantiated the case that more trouble is inevitable, although it did point to it being likely. I am not so sure, however, that I agree even with that, although I agree that further problems and violence are possible. However, if I had written the piece I would have used the phrase “MAY yet come”.
I tend to agree with the First Vice Minister, Amangeldy Muraliev, who has said that the general public won’t allow “mass violations”. He was talking in particular about the election period, but the sense I have< (and admittedly, I am based in Bishkek), is that this is the case. Most people do not want problems – were shaken by the violence and do not want to see repetitions. The problem is, as we have seen, it doesn’t need a huge number of people to create a dangerous situation which can quickly escalate.
Muraliev has also pointed out that the political parties also have a responsibility to see that the elections go smoothly and there have repeated promises that “official resources” will not be used by the governmental authorities to intervene in the process and guarantees of equitable exposure in the media for all parties. Despite this, one of his colleagues has claimed that there is interference in the work of the law enforcement agencies, which could bode ill for the result – if one or more parties can claim unfair practices.
There may well be a tendency for some people to cry “foul!” as there are going to be a lot of unsuccessful candidates and possibly a lot of disappointed, dissatisfied and disgruntled voters. The mathematics of the election are such that at least some of the twenty nine parties are unlikely to win any representation in the new parliament, and a poll during the week suggested that only 5 or six six would actually gain any seats at all.
There certainly has been some complaint already about that – especially about reports on a Russian TV channel – which is widely received in Kyrgyzstan that contained material which seemed to discredit some of the candidates in the election. Was this an attempt to influence the results of the election? Some are definitely of the opinion that it was.
Although, as I said, I am based in Bishkek, I do talk to people from around the country and sometimes I do get out and about. Last weekend, for example, I went to Naryn for my regular monthly visit to the guesthouse and as we travelled I saw a lot of billboards displaying adverts for different parties. There were obviously a lot lining the main road out of Bishkek, but I was a little surprised to see so many in the country. Most had the name of the party and a picture of the party leader, some displayed the number of the party on the ballot paper, (the positions having been allocated by ballot rather than being in alphabetical order), but those for one party simply had its name and logo in white on a bright red background. These seemed to be in the majority. Another party had some posters which had a simple message above its name: “Chaos or Order – Decide!” Maybe it is the cynic in me, but I wondered if that was a wise slogan. I understand that the implication was “vote for us for Order” but it could easily be read the other way.
I don’t know if this anything to go by, after all it was a very limited sample in a very restricted geographical area, but although I saw placards for about a dozen parties, most of them seemed to be for just a handful: Ata Meken, the SDPK, Ar Namys, BEK, and Respublica.
As we drove through a couple of towns I was intrigued to see that many of the shops had placards for one party or another over their own nameboards: Ata Meken on one shop, and next door the SDPK, BEK, Ar Namys or some other party. On the way up I got the impression that in one town well over half the shops displayed their political allegiances in this way, but on the way back I checked again and it although there were a lot it was less than half.
The main street in Naryn was bedecked with flags, banners, billboards and posters, but because of roadworks we had to take a detour down a parallel side street past the market and, here, there was definitely a different picture – just three election posters.
It wasn’t just in the towns, either. There were placards in virtually every village through which we passed and sometimes even in the countryside you would see ribbons or posters attached to trees, telegraph poles or electricity pylons.
One of the more interesting of the election stories concerns one of the candidates, Alene Ofoyo. His photo adorns one of the larger election posters prominently displayed in Bishkek. He was born in 1982 in one of the Bishkek suburbs to an ethnic Russian mother and a Congolese father, Somewhat of a hero in Kyrgyzstan, especially amongst the youth who take all forms of martial arts very seriously, in 2008, he defeated Belarusian fighter Zamin Guseinov to become middleweight champion of the WBKF – a Russian kickboxing league fighting under name ‘the Black Kyrgyz’. He still holds that title. It seems that he hopes to add a new, different. title to that one soon: Parliamentary Deputy.
Elsewhere on the political front, life goes on. The search for Bakiev, members of his family and entourage goes on and requests to arrest and detain some thirty odd people have been sent to several countries. The net has widened as well … a similar request was also sent to Kiev where the Uzbek community leader from Djalal Abad, Kadyrzhan Batyrov, is supposed to be in hiding and there’s apparently still talk about trying to extradite Akaev
There are still problems with the borders … not all the crossing posts with Kazakhstan are working, and where they are it takes an inordinate amount of time to get through; the situation with the Uzbek border is still unclear; the Tajik border now seems to be open but the latest blow has come on the Chinese border – which is closed from October 1st to the 10th. As it happens, this has nothing to do with the situation in Kyrgyzstan but is down to the festivities surrounding the Chinese National Day holiday and occurs virtually every year. We actually plan for it, so it came as no surprise. However, it is nice to see that some things are continuing normally!
In terms of tourism, however, there are some problems. The government has apparently declined to adopt measures suggested by representatives of the tourism industry in order to help its development next year. I haven’t seen an official announcement of this, (and, to be honest, I had put their reluctance to do anything down to an attitude of “wait and see” – see what happens in the election), but if it is true, then it is regrettable. As it happens, I can see some logic behind such a decision, but I suspect that it means that we will see little support or progress in the near future. The Executive Director of the Hotels Association – a former Civil Servant, himself), has complained that the government and the Kyrgyz embassy in Almaty failed to react and have done nothing to counter the “black-PR” that appeared on Kazakh TV.
One of the myriad of meetings I attended during the week was the inaugural meeting of the Japanese Committee on the Development of Tourism in Kyrgyzstan. The Japanese have always been good friends of Kyrgyzstan. Their interest in Kyrgyzstan might well have been something to do with the Japanese prisoners of war who were sent her at the end of the second world war – many of them worked on building the military sanatoria at Tamga, and some of them actually returned recently to see the place where they had spent the last days of the war. On the other hand it could be as a result of their interest in The Great Silk Road – one of the first themes that is taught in History lessons in Japanese schools. It could be a more personal factor – most, if not all, of the official Japanese representatives that I have met have had a great affection for the place and one even wrote a book (in Japanese) on the Kyrgyz language. They have run a wide variety of courses for people here in Kyrgyzstan and a previous Japanese ambassador was one of the leading lights in raising awareness about the awful state of Kyrgyz toilets – but, probably the less that is said on that particular theme, the better. Maybe another time. On the other hand, it could be as a result of the fact that the Japanese are one of the world’s greatest traveling nations and this is a part of the world that they rarely visit, partly because it so difficult for them to get here.
Actually, the meeting went quite well. I had thought it might end up being another “tick the box” exercise … the sort of event that is often put on by different organizations, the main point of which seems to be that someone can put a tick a box in a report to show that they have done something. In fact, although there was an element of that, it turned out quite different. Even the Minister said that the result was far better than could possibly have hoped for before the event.
Most people tended to stick to the time that had been allocated to them, (including me), and most of the main speeches were similar to the “tick box” type to which we have become so familiar … but there were a number of high spots and some concrete proposals.
Just one example, (I’ll give more examples on the website at the beginning of next week): One of the main speakers delivered what struck me as a “tick box” speech … but when it when it came to the general discussion, he didn’t have a script and he spoke from the heart. He commented on the paucity of signing at tourist attractions – directional signs and informational signs, which is something we have been talking about for some years. Then he dropped his “bombshell”, his agency would start work on this project – tomorrow. If he is true to his word and we actually see some results that will, indeed, represent a very useful result and a valuable contribution to the development of tourism in the country. Of course, it’s only a start, but it will hopefully show people that not everything has to cost a lot of money or take a lot of time but that some issues can be resolved quickly and effectively and provide a good example to be emulated at other places around the country.
As I keep saying – life goes on. Just like those soldiers in the Forgotten Fourteenth, we are “soldiering on” – getting on with life, getting on with the job – and, hopefully, getting the job done. Just as the reports from the Burmese jungle were poured over by Churchill and the War Office, so reports from Bishkek are considered by various authorities and what assistance could be dispatched to support the efforts of those on the ground was sent, (of, course, now as then there is a question of whether it is the most appropriate or sufficient to enable them to succeed, but only in the course of only time will that become apparent).
So, “relegated” – yes, maybe, but “forgotten” – no, I don’t think so.
Bishkek